Too hot for Sweden

While Dana White seems to have made a 180 or at least 160 degree turn regarding his opinion on women’s MMA, it seems like the UFC as a whole still isn’t 100% comfortable with the idea of chicks slugging it out in the cage. The women’s bantamweight division is still only six broads deep and may only serve as a feeder system for Rousey opponents until the promotion is sure fans won’t reject WMMA. And a proposed Miesha Tate vs Cat Zingano fight was allegedly pulled out of the co-main slot of the UFC’s return to Sweden over concerns it might be too extreme for the market:

The fight was pulled because it was felt by Garry Cook, the UFC VP in charge of UK and European operations, that it wasn’t suited to the Swedish audience.

Sweden is a new market and there is still some considerable opposition to the UFC among that infamously liberal and ‘progressive’ nation’s press. Politically it is a very left-wing country and it was only in 2007 that a 1970 ban on professional boxing was lifted.

Alexander Gustafsson has spearheaded the charge into what has proven to be an unexpectedly lucrative market for the UFC, but the potential for the national press to dislike or misinterpret a women’s fight was felt to be too high to risk.

Who’d have thought that left wing influences would keep UFC WMMA out of Sweden? Typically it’s the right wingers trying to keep chicks in the kitchen where they can’t abort their rape babies. But lefties have their own annoying brand of ignorant bastards – the kind that think ultimate fighting is way too awesome to be legal. Based on that, I guess I can see how adding women into the equation could result in wealthy European dowagers proclaiming their shock and monocles falling out of eyes.